Movie Review: Ratatouille

OK, so this isn’t a new release, but in beginning my quest to watch some of the Oscar-nominated flicks (this was nominated for best animated film), my wife and I rented this one over the weekend.
I’m a huge fan of anything Pixar (the only one I haven’t seen is Cars and the only one I didn’t just love was Monsters Inc.) and I’m not really sure why we hadn’t seen this one when it came out. Previous reviews were glowing (it scored the highest of all movies in 2007 on the Rotten Tomatoes TomatoMeter), and a few friends who’d seen it said it was great.
Well, it was. It’s my second favorite Pixar film (Toy Story 1&2 take the top prize), and it was the first movie I’ve seen that really shined on and HDTV screen.
Since it’s not a “new” movie, I won’t go into the plot details, etc. I will say my wife loved the kitchen scenes, as she’s an incredible cook herself, and she enjoyed the detail that went into the look of the food, the brand of stove and everything else.
As with most Pixar movies, I loved the characters. It’s one of the weird things about being human — put a good story and likeable characters before us, and we start liking them and wishing them to succeed … even if they’re animated.
I’m an animal lover, but I hate rats. I’m like Pee Wee Herman, who loved all pets but hated snakes. Or Ace Ventura, an animal advocate who hated bats.
That said, I loved Remy and even found it amusing to see a swarm of rats invade a kitchen. In real life, I would have passed out and died instantly.
It’s beginning to look like I only review movies I like on here, but that’s not entirely true (see Transformers). I’m not an actual critic, so the movies I see are usually the ones I’m pretty sure I’ll like. I see a lot on TV that makes me ill, and last year, I saw “Because I Said So,” which is probably the worst movie ever, though I didn’t care to write about it (I didn’t have a blog then either).
Ratatouille is a lock for best animated film in a year that didn’t have a lot of competition (Surf’s Up is nominated too). I think it could have had a shot at Best Film. But I don’t know that just yet, as I haven’t seen any of the contenders. But I will.

Ratatouille: **** out of 5 stars